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Friday, December 28, 2012

Today I have another bright nail design that would probably be more appropriate for summer. I decided on a color scheme that reminded me of the sky at sunset, and I think the results turned out really pretty. I'm still sort of getting used to gradient manicures, so until I'm really comfortable I think I prefer to stamp over them.

This is a combination of Wet & Wild Megalast in Club Havana, a bright sorbet orange, China Glaze Surreal Appeal a pretty coral leaning pink, and Wet & Wild Megalast On A Trip, a super saturated lilac purple stamped using Konad plate m63 and Wet & Wild Root of All Evil, an ultra-saturated royal blue with beautiful shimmer. The second photo is the most color accurate, the first makes Club Havana look too dark orange.

Thursday, December 27, 2012

I hope everyone had an enjoyable holiday season, whatever you may celebrate.

Now that the obligatory Holiday nails are done with I wanted to bring you some out of season brightness. For some odd reason I always tend to gravitate towards nail colors that are the opposite of the season, i.e. vampy colors in summer, neons and brights in winter. It's an odd quirk, but it leads to some pretty combinations like today's.

This is China Glaze Gothic Lolita stamped using China Glaze DV8 on Cheeky XL plate C. In low light the design is really subtle, but I love the combo in the sun. Gothic Lolita is a pretty hyacinth purple with a lovely blue shimmer, and DV8 is a super linear holographic teal that works so wonderfully for stamping.

Friday, December 21, 2012

Well for the "End of the World" I wanted to do a manicure for my favorite sub-genre of apocalypse: Zombies. I was planning out a nice, normal zombie manicure when I looked up at what my mother was doing on her computer... then it hit me... PLANTS VS. ZOMBIES.

If you aren't familiar with PVZ, it's a super addictive tower defense game available for tablets, smartphones, and computers. The point is to plant plants in your front and back yard to keep zombies out of your home and away from your brains.

Here is the result of that brainstorm:

Left Hand: Brain, Peashooter, Sunflower, Torchwood, Wall-Nut

Right Hand: Potato Mine, Flaming Pea, Flaming Pea, Flaming Pea

Right Thumb: Zombie

These took a long time and a lot of polishes to do.

For the left hand the brain is Zoya Areej stamped with China Glaze Something Sweet. using my Cheeky XL Plate D. The base of every other nail is either China Glaze Starboard or Essie Mojito Madness. The Peashooter is OPI Who The Shrek Are You dotted with Wet N Wild Black Creme. The Sunflower is OPI San-tan-tonio, China Glaze Happy Go Lucky, a mix of Who The Shrek Are You and Starboard, and Black Creme. The Torchwood is China Glaze Mahogany Magic, Happy Go Lucky and Papaya Punch for the flames, Happy Go Lucky and Merry Berry for the eyes, and Wet N Wild Black Creme and French White Creme.The Wall-Nut is San-Tan-Tonio, Black Creme, and French White Creme.

For the right hand the bases are also alternating Starboard and Mojito Madness. The Potato Mine is OPI A Taupe The Space Needle, San-Tan-Tonio, Sally Hansen Complete in Dorian Grey, and China Glaze Hey Sailor. All the Flaming Peas are Black Creme with China Glaze Happy Go Lucky and Papaya Punch. Finally, the zombie on the thumb is Sinful Colors Seaweed, China Claze Merry Berry, and Black Creme and French White Creme.

For the first really detailed freehand nail art I've done in a long time I'm really happy with how these turned out... Especially the zombie, considering I wasn't using my dominant hand to paint him!

Thursday, December 20, 2012

Today I have a cute little design for winter. If I'm being honest, I really don't like Christmas that much. I have some strange aversion to red and green together, I never know what to get people, and I hate Christmas music. That being said, this year I have been trying to be more festive, so I came up with this cute design for winter.

This mani consisted of Essie One Day Without Blues (aka Coat Azure), Wet 'N' Wild White French Creme for the snowflake stamping (using a Shany plate if I recall correctly), with Color Club Lumin-Icent dotted in the center of each snowflake. For my little penguin accent nails I used Wet 'N' Wild French White Creme and Wet 'N' Wild Black Creme for the body, Essie's Vermillionaire for the beak and feet, and Essie One Day Without Shoes for the scarf.

Overall I was really pleased with this design. Free-handing the penguins was not as difficult as I expected it to be when I thought up these. I am also finding I really like the wear time of Essie polishes (the above was after 4 days with only a little tip wear).

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

It has been a crazy year for me. Between opening and subsequently having to close a business, family issues, and a vast array health issues it's not surprising that I haven't been able to keep up with my blogging. I am very happy to return to it though, and I have lots of lovely new manicures planned to show everyone!

Today I have a pretty combination of two of my favorite OPI's... What's With The Cattitude from the Shrek Collection and You Don't Know Jacques. WWTC is a beautiful bright sky blue that covers in 3 coats, and YDKJ is a rich chocolate-y taupe that's perfect in two. To get the design I used the Cheeky XL Jumbo Plate C which I got in a 3 pack available on Amazon. I have had the XL plates for less than a week and I'm already so in love with them... I've become very addicted to full nail images, and these have so many different patterns, and I never have to double stamp because the images are considerably bigger than Konad or Bundle Monster.

Are you a fan of nail stamping? If so, do you prefer subtler combinations or in-you-face contrast?